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Masters Races in Historic Mt
Washington Valley
by Barb Brumbaugh
Despite a high of single digit
temperatures, competition heated up at Cranmore Ski Area for the Gibson
Cup on Friday and Saturday and for a slalom at Wildcat on Sunday. Some
“old” faces from past seasons, as well as some welcomed new competition
showed up on the start lists.
The historic Gibson Cup, a two day
combined event of GS and Slalom, is held annually to honor North Conway
native Harvey Dow Gibson. In 1939, Gibson, a banker and business owner,
used his financial and political clout to successfully negotiate for the
“relocation” of Hannes Schneider from war-torn Austria to North Conway
to run the ski school at Cranmore. Schneider is known as the “father of
modern skiing” having developed the stem christie and modern ski
teaching methods.
This year, Matt Aeschliman (M2), took
overall Gibson Cup honors with a second place in the GS and a win in the
slalom. Steve Ouellette (M2) and Dave Wolff (M4) challenged, but were
unable to ski clean over four runs. In the end, it was Tip Kimball (M5)
and Mark George (M6) rounding out the top three over two days of
competition. In age class competition, it was the men’s class three that
was the closest race -- only 0.66 separated Alex Gadbois and Brian Irwin
with Gadbois taking the class win. Gadbois and Irwin finished fourth and
fifth overall.
For the women, it was once again
Jessie McAleer (W3) for the Gibson Cup win. McAleer won all four runs,
with a margin of over twenty seconds. Chasing her was Kim Wolff (W5)
with two second place results and Margaret Vaughn (W5) following in
third. Meg Nutter (W6), in her first weekend back this season, used her
slalom prowess to overtake Anne Nordhoy (W9) for fourth overall.
Summarizing the results after the
race Patti Lane (W5), while commiserating with Barb Brumbaugh (W4)
stated “I don’t know what happened in the slalom, but you and I
should’ve just hit the bar after the first run.” The bar is where
everyone headed after the race to enjoy liquid refreshments supplied by
sponsor Shipyard Brewery.
Finally, a race was held under near
perfect race conditions. Racers gathered Sunday for a slalom at Wildcat.
Everyone had the pleasure of enjoying a couple of warm-up runs on
several inches of a strange white fluffy substance prior to the race.
The courses were well set and held up well for the field.
Jessie McAleer scorched the second
run for the win over Kim Wolff. Wolff was able to hold off class 1 Abbi
Lefebvre who settled for third overall. Margaret Vaughn was fourth with
Michelle Woloshin (W2) taking fifth.
Competition got a little more
interesting for the men when Tim Mitchell (M1) stole the win from Mark
George (M6) by 4.36 seconds. Mitchell is the head Harvard University ski
team coach and a five time All-American from Plymouth State (2002). To
make the race just a little more interesting, Mitchell brought along
Scott Kennison (M1), his assistant coach at Harvard. Though a mistake in
the first run took him out of overall contention, Kennison had the
fastest second run taking Mitchell by 1.2 seconds. Kennison is no
stranger to elite ski racing as he is a former captain of the UVM ski
team, and former US Development ski team member. In third place overall,
Steve Ouellete had his hands full holding off Mark Budreski (M3) by a
mere 0.09, while Dave Wolff, unable to hold onto a 0.98 second lead over
Budreski followed closely in fifth overall.
The Sise Cup overall standings:
Jessie McAleer leading with Margaret Vaughn and Anne Nordhoy moving into
second and third respectively. For the men, it’s still Mark George
hanging on to the lead with Steve Ouellete and Randy Detrick rounding
out the top three. Alex Gadbois is only one point behind in fourth
overall. The competition heats up as the overall hunt for Sise Cup
honors tightens with ten scoring races to go - anything can happen!
Racers will converge upon Okemo on
Friday, Feb 2 for a super G, the first speed event of the season, and
then on to Sunapee and Gunstock for GS and slalom.
Complete results at
www.nemasters.org.
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